Trains to the East: A two-minute stop on Trans-Siberian Highway

March 07 2013

Artem Zagorodnov

RBTH

Artem Zagorodnov: "In the morning we visited a few more schools before arriving in the village of Urusha to catch the 14:00 stop of the organizers' train heading to Khabarovsk." Source: Artem Zagorodnov

Yesterday we began a
2000 kilometer trek between the Far East cities of Chita and Khabarovsk.

For
centuries the route had lacked a real road connection, thereby splitting off
Russia's Far East from the rest of the country's road network (the missing link
happened to roughly parallel the route of the Chinese Great Wall down south).

All of this changed when
Putin announced the completion of the Trans-Siberian Highway in 2010 and
famously drove across the previously missing link in a homemade Lada Kalina.
Whenever we cross a rough or bumpy patch, the team immediately remarks: “This
part Putin didn't cross.” Overall, however, there have been few complaints.